1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a robot, an emergency stop method of a robot, and so on.
2. Related Art
Industrial robots play an active role in a lot of production sites. In such production sites, according to the principle of separation, robots and humans are physically separated from each other with a guard fence or the like to secure the safety.
However, it is unachievable to separate robots and humans from each other in, for example, a teaching operation to the robots, and there is a possibility that the safety is diminished by, for example, a contact of an arm and so on of the robot with people. Alternatively, there is a case in which the safety is diminished due to an unwanted action (e.g., uncontrollable error) of a robot. Further, there is a demand for prevention of a damage of the robot itself due to the uncontrollable error. In order to cope with such cases as described above, robots are provided with a so-called emergency stop switch. As related art of such an emergency stop switch, there can be cited technologies disclosed in, for example, JP-A-2011-62794 (Document 1) and JP-A-2008-49462 (Document 2). Further, as the related art for resolving a failure due to an unexpected action of a mobile robot in a charging process, there can be cited a technology disclosed in JP-A-2009-142080 (Document 3).
Most of the past industrial robots are based on an assumption that the robots do not move from a workplace after once being installed in the workplace. On the other hand, in recent years, mobile industrial robots coexisting with humans to perform operations are also attracting lots of attention. In the case in which such a robot performs an operation on, for example, a workbench, the robot might be shifted from a work position due to an unexpected cause. In such a case, it is unachievable to normally perform the emergency stop of the robot with the emergency stop switch provided to, for example, the robot main body, which is undesirable in terms of safety.